


Day In And Day Out

by TheBlindBandit



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Gamethyst Bomb 2016, Gem Corruption, Homeworld is Horrible, Welcome to earth, set during the Earthlings arc with references to Reformed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 05:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8359186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlindBandit/pseuds/TheBlindBandit
Summary: Garnet gets contemplative, and Amethyst gets a present.





	

The mission takes her to a desert, to sun-beaten ruins flung far from any human presence, be it road or outpost or settlement.

Garnet remembers this place very well, from Before. She remembers what it was going to be, until the sudden end of the war put a horrifying stop to everything. She remembers disrupting its construction several times over several centuries leading up to that, different companions by her side on each occasion.

She remembers its guards, too. Small, single-minded, endlessly determined: four Gems who failed to make it to Homeworld’s rush-job retreat (if they were ever even deemed important enough to be informed of it), and four reasons she wanted to come here alone.

The form of the first corrupted ruby dissipates beneath her gauntlets in seconds, leaving behind nothing more than a patch of sand melted into glass and a red gem Garnet has little trouble envisioning on her own left palm. The three other rubies aren’t far behind, however - they never were. They may have forgotten most of themselves, but they have not forgotten this.

_Stronger together. Attack as one._

But Garnet is stronger, and more together than she’s been in a while. She makes short work of the hotheaded trio, sends their bubbled gems off with a gentle tap on each, and allows herself a much-needed moment in the sudden quiet.

The hot, dry wind is good for focusing, and it’s been a trying few weeks of a trying year.

The quiet starts to feel eerie far sooner than what Garnet’s used to, however. For a planet so teeming with life, the Earth sometimes has a strong air of death and desolation around it, like something marked, permanently scarred, in ways both visible and not. Rapidly fading echoes of past battles and revelry both, noise conspicuously absent, or replaced with snarls and howls and almost painful-sounding roars.

She hates the thoughts that come in the aftermath like this, that the quiet allows to creep in. The Crystal Gems: brave, rebellious guardians of the planet, fearless defenders of all life. Reduced from a force of thousands to barely a handful, depending on the generosity of your counting, by the desperate, hateful cruelty of a few.

But there is one notable, remarkable exception to it all, and it is this Garnet chooses to focus on and be driven by.

The grand exception is, of course, Amethyst.

Amethyst happened to them as nothing short of a miracle. Garnet remembers all too well the victory that turned into bitter ashes right before their eyes, the ensuing centuries of hunting down former comrades and allies and friends and loved ones, of endless futile attempts at healing and the repeated sting of hope turned to disappointment following on their heels. But then, in what was going to be nothing but a routine inspection of the Kindergarten: life out of death in the most on-the-nose way possible, a purple ball of endless energy and curiosity rushing out of one of the holes they long thought cold and empty and abandoned, barrelling into Garnet’s chest and into their lives.

Amethyst is something none of them ever thought they’d have again. She is the culmination of many efforts, a Gem who’s never known anything but life on Earth, who’s never had to bear the burden of Homeworld directly. But she is also _Amethyst_ , loud and messy and reckless and creative and fun, wrestling with herself and the shadow of her own lonely and troubled origin - and Garnet wouldn’t change her for the world. Which is, perhaps, a part of why she wants nothing more than another chance to put a fist through Jasper’s smug, Homeworld-proud face.

Oh, she’s faced plenty like Jasper in her time. Their hateful words and determined lack of understanding roll off her easily, like so much rainwater. But Amethyst doesn’t have the same luxury of experience. Amethyst, no matter what tough or uncaring or irreverent front she likes to present, takes things to heart. She feels things intensely and shines them right back, and Garnet has become used to the warmth of this particular sun - a part of her life on Earth as much as the one in the sky.

It is her greatest strength. It is also far too easily used against her.

Amethyst understands so much, in her heartfelt and instinctual way, with no explanations and no teaching - and yet, in the great scheme of things, so very little. It is selfish and unfair of Garnet, perhaps, to want to keep it that way. Homeworld refuses to give them the luxury of stepping out of its long shadow. Decisions made thousands of years ago are slowly coming to do more harm than good, and no contrived excuse of sparing her for her own good can hold up for much longer. They all contributed to leaving Amethyst disarmed in the face of such absolute conviction in a social order with no place for anyone like her.

There are so many conversations they need to have once this particular fragment of this particular threat and ongoing crisis is taken care of - none of them light or easy, but all of them increasingly necessary. If there is one thing Garnet has learned about being a leader, it is that burdens must be shared, or they will grind all of them into nothing and leave the dust for Homeworld to easily blow away upon arrival.

She takes another deep, grounding breath, and gets up from her perch on a rocky outcropping to do the other thing she came to the desert for.

Then, finally, she sets off for home.

-

Amethyst has been subdued lately - quieter and more thoughtful in a way that bodes anything but well. She spends far too much time flipping between endless brooding and restless, darkly determined and not particularly constructive overtraining, and Garnet makes it her business to interfere.

She warps back into the house to find Amethyst sprawled on the couch, clearly in the gloomy, moping part of the cycle, so she sits down next to her.

“Amethyst.”

“Oh. Hey, Garnet,” she’s greeted half-heartedly, with a wave barely lifted off the cushions. “What’s up?”

Garnet doesn’t answer. Instead, she lets her arms fall open - and despite everything, she doesn’t need future vision to know Amethyst will clamber over and take her place in them soon enough.

She holds Amethyst close to her chest and thinks of the things their victory, though hollow, has still won them, and allows herself the beginnings of a smile. There is weight being lifted off her shoulders that she wasn’t even aware the desert and the ruins and the rubies and the heavy thoughts had put there, and Amethyst hasn’t even done anything but _be_. But they are forbidden and rebellious, the both of them, by virtue of their very being. That they are together as they are, loving and expressing it freely, is another unthinkable, unheard-of layer.

Nobody like Amethyst would have been allowed to even exist, were it not for Earth.

Nobody like Garnet would have been allowed to even exist, were it not for Earth.

And oh, Amethyst would love nothing more than scandalising the stuffy court of some diamond or other - Garnet is absolutely certain of this. Picturing the chaos and outrage and Amethyst’s unabashed, defiant delight at both makes the nascent smile on Garnet’s face grow into a grin.

“And what are _you_ so happy about?” Amethyst mumbles, poking a now conveniently eye-level cheek. “Ruby and Sapphire think of another bunch of gross cutesy pet names for each other or something?”

That, at least, is simple enough for Garnet to answer. “You.”

“Uh. What?”

Garnet thinks of attempting to explain in more detail, but that’s never really been her strongest suit. She is a feeling made tangible, an abstract concept made real; it is hard to put things into words sometimes, even things she _knows_ \- how would one begin to explain the back of one’s hand, anyway?

But she is here to show, so she takes the newly recovered remnant of old, long-defunct Gem tech from where she’d stowed it away, and hands it over to Amethyst. “Here you go.”

Amethyst grabs it and starts turning it over immediately, a familiar and eager curiosity in her eyes that Garnet had begun to miss driving away at least some of the clouds that had settled there. “Huh? What’s this?”

It would have been some cruel, prismatic, diamond-invoking shape, once. But its edges have been weathered and dulled by wind and sand and neglect and time, and its purpose has long been made meaningless.

Garnet hums. “It’s round.”

“Yeeeah, I can… kinda see that.”

Amethyst prods and squints at the odd, shiny lines texturing the dusty sphere in her hand, no closer to an actual answer. She isn’t doing anything remarkable, really, but her focus is still a delight to watch, so Garnet indulges.

“Back when we were hunting the Slinker around your room I knocked over some piles and made you lose your favourite round thing. I’m sorry, and I hope this new one will do.”

This is enough to make Amethyst pause in her attempts to twist one half of the thing off. “You remembered that? Aw, jeez, Garnet…”

The deep violet blush that spreads across Amethyst’s cheeks and the way she buries her face between Garnet’s neck and shoulder make any hassle in acquiring the thing absolutely worth it. “Of course I remembered, Amethyst. I love you.”

It is a simple statement of a far from simple, if well-known, truth.

“Garneeet!” Comes a whine from somewhere just underneath her chin. “You can’t just… _say_ it like that!”

Garnet shrugs, taking care to keep one shoulder mostly still for Amethyst’s comfort. “I can, because it’s true.”

“Unfair,” she mutters. Then, after a brief pause: “So you… you mean it?”

“I always mean things when I say them, Amethyst.”

There is another pause, punctuated with some shuffling around on Amethyst’s part. Her weight in Garnet’s lap is pleasantly reassuring, and the silence is neither uncomfortable nor tense.

“I, um. This thing is… it’s really cool. And round. Thanks.” Amethyst hesitates, and Garnet gives her more time, letting her burrow into her shoulder as much as she wants, until there is a muffled and hard-won but unmistakably heartfelt _Love you too_.

Garnet presses a kiss into the mess of soft, light hair tickling her chin and cheek, and finds it very hard to focus on losses for the time being. The Earth has certainly paid her back and given her many things, but perhaps this most of all: love, a place to love (a place to _be_ ), a place that is hers, and that is hers to share, and Amethyst.


End file.
